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Blowback and the legacy of Stuxnet

Keeping in mind that Stuxnet, the most ingenious computer worm the world has seen so far, was created by the NSA to target Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, consider:

[N]ow with that code available in the wild for anyone to study and copy, the digital weapon can serve as a blueprint to design other attacks targeting vulnerable control systems in the United States and elsewhere—to manipulate valves in a gas pipeline, for example, or to release sewage into waterways, or possibly even to take out generators at a power plant. It wouldn’t necessarily require the resources of a wealthy nation to pull off such attacks. With most of the core research and development already done by Stuxnet’s creators to expose the vulnerabilities in these systems, the bar has been lowered for other attackers, state and nonstate players alike, to get in the game.